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CNN Takes A Whack at Coconut Road
Last night, CNN took a look at Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) extra-Constitutional methods, airing a segment on Young's $10 million Coconut Road earmark.
Remember that someone, apparently at Young's behest, changed the language in the massive 2005 transportation bill after a vote in both the House and Senate.
Young's office has stayed quiet about the Constitutional issue at hand. Notably, he isn't even talking to CNN.
CNN did talk to a businessman, Joe Mazurkiewicz, who attended the Young fundraiser in 2005. That fundraiser, organized by Daniel Aronoff, netted Young $40,000 in contributions.
Mazurkiewicz told CNN there's nothing nefarious here -- it's just "really proper planning." That's at odds with the blunt description he gave to The New York Times in June:
'We were looking for a lot of money,'' said the consultant, Joe Mazurkiewicz. ''We evidently made a very good impression on Congressman Young, and thanks to a lot of great work from Congressman Young, we got $81 million to expand Interstate 75 and $10 million for the Coconut Road interchange.''
Blitzer wraps up the piece saying this can't possibly be the only example of an altered earmark in the 800-page highway bill. But according to our review, it certainly is 1 in 6, 371.
Comments (4)
Daniel wrote on August 23, 2007 1:29 PM:Notice that CNN did not identify Young as a Republican, and that they teased the story by saying low poll numbers for Congress spell bad news for Democrats, and "we'll" tell you why.
Grumpy wrote on August 23, 2007 1:43 PM:"John, good work," says Blitzer.
Imagine how impressed he'd be by someone who actually cross-checks Mazurkiewicz's statement. Instead, we're just supposed to take the "good planning" line as being untrustworthy because, hey, it's Congress.
Anonymous wrote on August 23, 2007 2:17 PM:"John, good work," says Blitzer.
ADN and KTUU could even follow up
At least CNN did but nobody gives TPM credit
BTW ADN had no follow up to $800,000,000 missing headline from VECO's financed PPT tax fix last year
How much are they paying ADN editors??????
heh wrote on August 23, 2007 4:33 PM:can they re-insert the language back in the original bill? That would make my day.
where was Denny Hastert that Delay pansy when this was all going on? Should we be surprised? He couldn't see Mark Foley's behavior either with those congressional pages.
and yeah they should've mentioned TPM, but no matter, the little people have been watching this like a train wreck that its becoming for the GOP.